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Thursday, February 06, 2025
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MWC: Big Tech May Be Flashy, but It Was the Tiny Start-Ups That Shone

by Hannah Duncan

The vibe:

It’s hard to explain the madness of Barcelona’s annual Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest mobile and tech event. Stepping inside the vast warehouse-like spaces, you’re one of 101,000 people. Probably one of 100 not wearing a suit.

The sprawling eight “halls” – which feel more like stadiums – are crammed top-to-bottom with the latest robots, tech trends and screens so bright you can feel the heat radiating out of them. In the coffee queue, fellow attendee and Data Analyst, Samia Alhaj Ahmad was beaming. “Seeing all the robots and AI here”, she elaborated. “It’s just mind-blowing!”

It’s a whirlwind of bright magentas, neon oranges, Armani suits, brief cases and incredibly serious faces. Above all of it, the whirring of chatter in scores of languages knitting together and sounding like a million buzzing computer fans.

There is also a tension in the air. If you’ve ever caught the underground at rush hour in the financial district, you’ll know it. A palpable kind of stress, jostling and bragging that only comes when too many businessmen are under pressure to get their bonuses. I say businessmen on purpose. Aside from some of the (what my friend beautifully called) “decorative women” who donned the stands, the congress felt overwhelmingly and undeniably male.

The big boys:

Dominating the vast spaces were the big names. Of course. The bad boys. Google, Erisson, Amazon, Microsoft, SK Technology, Huawei… Only Apple was missing. Their exhibitions were vast and kind of scary. Some came with security guards and their own check-in systems. They were flexing hard, veins popping, muscles bulging… like a body builder in the finals. And they shipped in everything from super cars to lunar machines to stand out.

It made me feel tiny. Like Thumbelina squinting next to a skyscraper. I had to crane my neck to see the Samsung sign. And the Huawei stand was more like an entire town. With its clinical white aesthetic, it belonged in an episode of Black Mirror.

Questionable AI uses:

Among the hefty players’ and their glitzy offerings, there were some icky moments. Speaking to a representative at the Vodafone stand, my jaw hit the floor at the casual way he talked about replacing teachers with these grim AI holograms. Not just teachers. “It could be used in healthcare, tech support, education, entertainment…” explained Stephen Lee. “She’s trained to do the role you want her to do”.

Testing out the AI assistant (predictably a blond woman, although I was repeatedly assured it had no gender), I had to repeat the exact phrase “my name is Hannah”, “MY. NAME. IS. HAN-NAH”, three times before it clocked it. Not ideal. When I asked Lee if he was at all concerned about job losses, he pointed out of all the jobs that have already been lost in the past. Uhh… great? “Society will need to adapt to new things”, he shrugged and went on to tell me that there is no regulation in place to stop them so it’s really all on the governments.

The words jolted through me like electric shocks, and I started to question if we have an empathy crisis in tech. Looking around the room, there were a lot of robotic faces and emotionless conversations going on. Hmm.

Start-ups with soul:

While big tech preened, pranced and pirouetted like pageant queens in the main zones, the start-ups were herded like sheep a long walk away into Hall 8.1. I almost expected to see hay on the floor. Crammed together tightly were hundreds upon hundreds of tiny stands with eager founders.
The noise of a thousand conversations was so intense it reminded me of a hive, with worker bees buzzing furiously for survival. I loved it. Far away from the glitzy big screens, here were people fighting to make a real difference in the world. It’s hard to know where to start. Maybe it’s because I’m from the countryside, but I was immediately drawn to a cereal box of dead bugs.

Plastic-eating-insect technology (yes, really):

Over the following five minutes, my brain exploded in every direction as Marcus Aguayo from Insectius explained the technology. “These insects eat plastic”, he began pointing to a plastic tub of wrinkly brown maggots. “They’re really good for the planet”.
Insectius use AI and insects to eliminate plastic forever. From there, they then feed livestock, create fertiliser or mush up the bugs into pastes for (trigger warning! This is gross) … make-up.

Healthtech from home:

Immediately next to the box of dead bugs was another stand, with a screen that filled with personal data when you stepped in front of it. When I was far away it read, “Young Woman”. But as I got closer, the AI switched to “Woman”. Cheeky bastard. It also determined that I give 65% of my attention to the speaker, and my emotion is “happy”.
Daniel Lopez from Neatsight explained how the tech could be used in a variety of ways, for example, to detect health issues. It was insanely cool. And you guys… big personal milestone… this was my first ever interview in Spanish. Are four years of lessons finally going to start paying for themselves…?
The start-up hall was like a maze of the weird and wonderful. Something that lured me over to another start-up was a bionic hand. You know Thing from the Addams family? Like that, but robotic. IMAZTech’s CEO Pouria Shafaei explained how “EG sensors analyse the brain”, so that the bionic hand moves naturally. He gave me a run-down of his other health tech, and even had me doing exercises. Using everyday devices, patients can send accurate data to their doctors instantly from the comfort of their own home. Amazing.

Agri-lushness:

My favourite start-up, though, had to be AfriOnline. Sort of like Sofie Blakstad’s Hive, AfriOnline digitises traditional businesses and especially farms, to help them take back control from sketchy middlemen.

“We help them take the product from the farm to the home”, CEO Wallace Ngige elaborated. I instantly liked Ngige, he was the perfect amount of passionate and bewildered. I could tell he’d practiced his pitch too. Together with his team they’d bootstrapped an impressive $250,000 and raised a further $150,000. The start-up was also well-diversified with more than 50% women in key roles.

Remote working pods:

Probably the hardest worker at the event was Tim Veles, Stategic Partnership Consultant at Qoob. He stood in front of two giant futuristic wheels – which turned out to be meeting pods – answering question after question from an endless stream of people. I joined the queue.
Attendees seemed quite interested in the pods, which are already dotted around Berlin. Just like Lime bikes or Zip cars, customers can use a QR code to open the door and hop in. The pods are fitted with leather cushioned seats, screens and climate control, perfect for serious business meetings. For ordinary Joe Schmoes like me, they cost about €4 to rent for 15 minutes. Corporates would have more of a subscription model.

I don’t buy the sustainability argument (that the pods would cut down on transport emissions), but I do see how they could be useful in today’s world. I always struggle to find a quiet place to work in Amsterdam, for example. Would I pay €16 to get a solid hour in? Probably. If I had a deadline. One to watch!

A kaleidoscope of contradictions:

Between the roaring tech giants and squeaking start-ups, there was a vast ecosystem of other tech animals. There were flying cars, robo dogs, 5G bikes, and something massive that looked like it was half-drone, half-helicopter.
Yet beneath it all was an explosion of contradictions and mixed philosophies. I heard firms talk about “empowering” people, while building the products that threaten their jobs. The conference boasted about being carbon-neutral, but the heat radiating from a million screens and vast number of attendees flying in tells a different story. It felt like emission city!

On one hand, tech companies are progressive. Yet on the other, the gender diversity was so poor, that it felt like we were back in the 1940s. I should have trotted in, in black-and-white with an apron, rollers and a freshly baked apple pie, like “Gee Whizz, wouldcha look at these jitterbugs and their swell inventions!”.

The Mobile World Congress isn’t just about tech. It’s a reflection of today. A timestamp in history of the challenges, opportunities and dilemmas we will face as we move deeper into the fourth industrial revolution. For myself, I’m rooting for the start-ups.

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